


Ibuki's Birthday

by Lunasticks



Category: Dangan Ronpa - All Media Types, Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: Birthday, Comfort, Cute, Cutesy, F/M, Fluff, Rarepair, Romance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-25
Updated: 2020-06-25
Packaged: 2021-03-04 04:48:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24917857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lunasticks/pseuds/Lunasticks
Summary: After admitting his crush on Ibuki, Kazuichi is more determined than ever to create a moment that the two of them will treasure forever.
Relationships: Mioda Ibuki/Soda Kazuichi
Comments: 5
Kudos: 43





	Ibuki's Birthday

**Author's Note:**

> Uhhhh sup
> 
> So, I discovered this 2-year old fic lying around. It was originally created as a small gift for my girlfriend, who's a huge fan of Ibuki. And now I'm sharing it here, because progress on my current KazuKoi fic has been slow and very segmented. 
> 
> Please note that this story is 2+ years old, and therefore is not particularly reflective of my current writing style. Thanks for reading! ^_^
> 
> Originally written on January 7th, 2018.

It was surprisingly hard to find anything on the island that could be considered useful wrapping paper, while still managing to look colourful and pretty. It certainly took Kazuichi Souda a lot of asking the other young temporary inhabitants on the once deserted island to find something useable. For a few days, he searched all around, trying to come up with some sort of idea. Rocketpunch Market contained a few things, but he felt that none of them were worthy of concealing something meant for… her. Despite desperately wanting to keep it to himself, in the end, he reluctantly told some of the others about his situation, and pleaded for them to help him, as the all-important deadline slowly approached.

His first instinct was asking Hajime for help, knowing that he would be most likely to want to support him. He was a calm guy, someone who respected others, he wouldn’t at all be shocked when-

“Y-You have feelings? F-For Ibuki?”

Aaaand everything he thought he knew about Hajime came crashing down.

“Come on man, I just… I want to give her something for her birthday… Help me out, won’t you?”

“I… Alright, sure… But, I thought for sure you had eyes on Nevermin-“

“S-Shut up! That was… You know how that ended… I… I have my eyes on someone else now! Someone I have an actual chance with!”

“U-Uhhh…”

“S-So you better not ignore me right now! We’re partners, dude, we have each other’s backs, no matter what!”

Hajime ended up sighing and agreeing, suddenly finding himself bombarded with questions from the pink-haired mechanic.

“Great! All right, so I am looking for wrapping paper, and I have searched everywhere, but I have no idea where to find anything! You see, I made this thing for her as a present, and-“

“S-Souda, please, slow dow-“

“Rocketpunch Market, Titty Typhoon, sure, they all contain things I could use, but none of them would be worthy of encasing a gift to someone as beautiful as hair, nothing I can find is matching how colourful her hair and clothes are, and on top of that-“

It was no use. Hajime was definitely not getting through to him. He decided on staying quiet, not really listening to Souda’s rambling, finally speaking up when he was done.

“Alright, look dude. You’re… You’re really damn serious about this, I can tell…”

Souda’s eyes lighted up as he saw Hajime, actually thinking hard about how to help out his partner in need. His hands were on his chin and his eyes were squinted together, almost as if he was trying to physically look like someone deep in thought.

Then suddenly, his eyes opened. Souda could almost picture the lightbulb going off above his head as he excited wanted to hear what Hajime had to say as quickly as possible.

“Alright Souda. I… I might have an idea.”

“R-Really?!”

“Yeah, this should work! Alright, firstly, go ask Mahiru if you could...-“

For about half a minute, Hajime explained his plan, stopping up occasionally as new ideas entered his head.

“And- Oh! What if you also…”

Souda was eagerly listening to what Hajime was saying, and found himself nodding along with every single word. Every part of his plan sounded perfect, and more than fitting for his crush.

“So? What do you think? Could you do that?”

“I… I think it’s great! Scratch that, it’s perfect! And she’s even holding one of her concerts tonight…”

Whilst nearly jumping with excitement, Souda suddenly felt a supportive hand on his shoulder.

“You can do this. I believe in you, dude.”

Souda clenched his fist, more determined than ever before.”

“Thanks dude. I owe ya.”

And with that, Souda sprinted off, eager to set his plan in motion, occasionally looking back at Hajime.

_“This time, I won’t screw up. This time, I will do everything I can.”_

A self-determined smile stretched across his face as he blasted through the sand.

_“This time… I have a chance.”_

* * *

It had all led to this day. Ibuki’s birthday.

Souda was waiting, just outside the Titty Typhoon, a couple days after his talk with Hajime. He looked down at his hands, which were holding the small package. To others, it might not be anything special. Just a waste of perfectly good materials. But he… he didn’t care about what others thought. He just wanted it to mean something to her. If he could just make her smile, make her happy, hear her laughter, anything… It would all be worth it.

…

Gah, his breathing was out of control. He could feel his hands shake and his heartbeat go faster and faster as the moment kept approaching. He needed some way to get a hold of himself. Alright, think about something other than the situation… The situation where he’s about to give a birthday present to none other than the Ultimate Musician herself… The person he’s been fancying for quite a while now… The girl that’s always so happy, it always puts a smile on his face… The girl who he admires for not going with the usual flow, just like himself… Her face is beautiful, she just looks gorgeous… And she’s on her way right now…

“GAHHH!!!”

Souda put one hand to his forehead, almost physically punching the way-too-persisting thoughts out of his head. It didn’t help. He couldn’t think about anything other than Ibuki. Her looks, her voice, her clothes, her likes and dislikes. Ibuki, Ibuki, Ibuki, nothing else. It didn’t exactly help on his rising heart-rate or his shaking hands, in fact, it just made the problem worse.

Souda took his hand off his forehead, and held the present with both hands right in front of his face. He studying it long and hard, from all possible angles. It wasn’t the biggest thing; it was about the size of a small novel.

_“Still… Size doesn’t matter, right?”_

Suddenly, Kazuichi had unwillingly begun thinking about all the things that could go wrong. He wanted this to be perfect. He wanted it to be special, not only for him, but maybe, just maybe… for her as well… However, so many things could go wrong. What if she just walked away when she would find out that it was he who wanted to talk with her? What if she did not like the wrapping, or even worse, the actual present inside?

So many questions. No answers until it actually happened. Souda could feel the sweat on his face. He’d never been this nervous before. He was just praying, praying that something could make his heart-beat normal in time, praying that something would come along and stop his shivering, just praying for something, anything…

“Heeeelloooo?!? Is anyone heeereee??”

Fuck.

Fuck fuck fuck fuck.

_“Okay Souda, deep breaths, deep breaths…”_

He lifted his head to see Ibuki, holding her hand over her eyes, as if she visually wanted to tell everyone around her what she was doing. That was a thing she just did all the time. If she were ever performing an action, you would instantly be able to notice it by her body language. Souda had picked that up after… y’know, realising what she meant to him. As Souda hastily hid the present behind his back, Ibuki seemed to scan the surrounding area, her head turning slowly from left to right, before finally landing on Kazuichi.

“G-A-S-P!! It’s none other than the Ultimate Mechanic himself, Kazuichi Souda!”

Even after partying all day, she still had the energy to dance towards him, humming one of her songs whilst doing so. Another trait that Souda had picked up about her: She never, ever lost her voice.

And he loved that about her.

They now stood face to face, Ibuki trying her best to keep eye contact with Souda whilst still needing to move her arms and legs around. She just couldn’t stand completely still, it wasn’t possible for her to do so. On the contrary, Souda found himself frozen in place, his voice not coming out. His body wasn’t shaking any more, but his heart was going crazy fast, and his brain was insisting that his legs should just run, run as far away as he could before he would fuck something up.

“Helloooo? Earth to Kazucihi! Anyone home?!”

Gah, her voice was just so cute. Souda couldn’t handle it. He could see in her eyes that she was getting impatient… He didn’t want her to leave… He had to do something, anything. Say something, compliment her, give her the gift, calm yourself down, any of those would do just fine!

“Hmmm? Say, are you hiding something from me? You look like you have something behind your back!”

She leaned forward, in a gesture that Souda just assumed was her teasing him. And not in a good way.

“It’s not nice to keep secrets from me, ya know! What it is? I want to see! Show me, show me!”

She was jumping up and down, trying to get a sneak peek of what he was hiding. He moved his body hastily in response to where she was, making sure the present was concealed. Ibuki was energetic, giggling the entire time.

“Come on, let me see! If you don’t show me, I swear I’ll bite you! Grrrr-!”

She actually growled at him. Kazuichi couldn’t help but smile softly at Ibuki, but found himself looking away from her, out in the distance. Maybe just keeping his eyes off hers for a bit would be enough to relax him at least a little bit…

But of course, as Souda probably realised, but had maybe forgotten, no-one could ever hide their emotions from Ibuki. She was just too good at noticing all those things. Ibuki’s smiling slowly vanished, as her jumping stopped. She stared at Souda for a while, realizing the smile on his face was a bit too melancholic.

“S-Souda, you alright? Y-You haven’t said anything, at all…”

Souda quickly turned to find himself looking at a worried Ibuki. Her eyes looked like they genuinely cared about his well-being… God, it was just too good to be true… The look on her face was just…

…he loved it. He absolutely adored the way her face looked in this very moment. It was plain to see that she, despite always acting outside of the established norm, always cared deeply about the people around her…

And now… he had no choice. He had to show that he cared about her too.

Silence hung in the air for a few moments, allowing Souda to take in everything. How Ibuki looked. How the night sky was slowly filling with tons of stars. How the cold air somehow felt warm, just because she was there.

“Ibuki!”

The musician was taken aback by the sudden yell. Souda made sure to keep his gaze on her, no matter what. He wasn’t going to stop now. He was determined to give her this present, no matter what the outcome of it would end up being.

“I… I wanted to give you this!”

Suddenly, his arms were stretched out in front, with the small, humble package laying in his open palm, very much visible to the eyes of the musician. He nearly bowed down, his head facing the ground with closed eyes, not wanting to see Ibuki’s reaction. Well, it wasn’t that he didn’t want to see it… But he was scared. Scared that she was going to freak out. Or was going to just run away. Or maybe she’d just faint and fall down without moving. Or maybe a meteor would suddenly crash into the island, crushing both of their bodies-

Souda subtly shook his head. He knew he needed to calm down, and attempted at doing so. It seemed to work, as his heart rate slowed down a bit… Unfortunately, just as he had solved that problem, he could feel his arms getting really tired, probably from holding the present up…

…Wait, he was still holding the present?

His head shot up, and his eyes opened.

“U-Um, why haven’t you-“

He completely lost his words when he saw that the look on Ibuki’s face had changed entirely from before.

She was stunned. Frozen in place, her hand covering her mouth. He had not expected such a… quiet reaction from her. On the contrary, if she had wanted the present, he would have expected her to bounce around, full of energy, focusing only on getting the contents out of the small package as quickly as possible.

Yet… she just stood there. Looking at it. Her eyes never left it. Souda could not help but completely lose himself in her. The way had face was slightly blushing. The way her eyes seemed to softly stare at his hands, not saying a single word. Instead of her movement doing all of the talking for her, it seemed that her expression was what was telling the entire story.

And Souda loved it. She had never looked prettier.

“I-Is that …”

Ibuki carefully extended her arm, and gently moved it towards the small present. She seemed almost afraid to touch it, although her hand did not stop nearing Souda’s. She carefully brushed against the gift with her finger, seemingly examining it by touch, before extending her second arm, grabbing a soft hold of the present, and pulling it closer. She found herself staring at it for several seconds, twisting and turning the package in her hands, her eyes lightening up as she continued to inspect it.

There was something about the gift that instantly caught her attention. Something she hadn’t expected from someone like Kazuichi. It wasn’t the shape of the present, or something weird about the weight that had gotten her interested. No, those were all as they should be.

It was the packaging.

“These are…”

The things used to wrap the gift were… pictures of her. Polaroid pictures, copied onto regular paper, so they didn’t tear when bent around the present. Her performing on stage. She twisted and turned the gift even more. There was a shot of her rocking out at the peak of the show’s intensity. A picture of the crowd all gathered around, having a good time. Oh! Right here was a picture of her and some of the other girls after the concert was over!

She continued to carefully glance over every single spot. There were a ton of pictures. All showcasing something wonderful about that night. How fun it was to be on stage. How happy she made the others. How much everyone’s morale had increased after the night was over. She couldn’t remember anyone doing anything of this sort for her before… And the fact that it was from Souda… She couldn’t believe it, but it was right there. She was holding it.

“You like ‘em? I… I took all the photos myself… I think…”

Ibuki quickly looked up. Souda was suddenly standing, his back straight and his fist clenched, as if he’d suddenly gotten over whatever went over him before. Ibuki’s gaze went from the gift to his face, back to the gift, to his face again. She was complete and utterly speechless. For the first time in a long time, she was just… overwhelmed. She strived to be someone who brought positivity to others… Now… Someone had done that to her… To such an extent as to actually show her the effect she had on people…

“A-Aren’t you going to o-open it?”

As soon as Souda’s voice reached Ibuki, it was like something in her suddenly clicked. Something akin to: “Oh, right, she hadn’t even opened the actual gift yet.” She immediately nodded, and began unwrapping the present, careful not to destroy any of the pictures. Usually, she’d just tear through it like it was an enemy of rock n’ roll as she knew it, but something in her mind just decided that she needed to handle this particular item with respect. As more and more paper-photographs were brushed aside, a piece of metal became visible. She removed the last photograph and studied the item now in her hand. It was a small metal box, about the size of a typical manga. It wasn’t particularly heavy, so it wasn’t a pain to hold in just one hand, although the metal did feel cold on her naked hands, causing her to tense up a little.

“It’s a portable speaker. Made from a few pieces of metal I found lying around. I always got the feeling you didn’t like being restricted to only playing in Titty Typhoon without having to move all the big speakers around, so I… y’know, just… thought this might help you…”

Souda was looking down and to the side, rubbing the back of his head.

“I know it’s not much, and it might not be the loudest thing ever… I tried tweaking it as much as possible, but I understand if you’d want it to be loude-“

Souda suddenly felt a pair of arms embrace him, the sudden force applied to him forcing him to take a step back as to not fall backwards. Looking down, he could just about make out the top of Ibuki’s hair.

He had just been jump-hugged by her. The girl he’d been harbouring a crush on for quite a bit of time was embracing him. Tightly. He could feel her body pressed against his, how her warmth seemed to radiate, transferring directly to him. If he had a mirror to check himself in, he was sure that he was definitely blushing right now. For a few seconds, he didn’t know what to do with his arms, hands, anything.

“Thank you… Thank you so much, Kazuichi… Ibuki means it…”

Did she really just say that? T-To him? While she was hugging him? Souda was in shock, and it took him a few moments to recover from what he had just heard. Meanwhile, Ibuki didn’t seem to matter, as she just kept pressing herself against Souda, eventually burying her head in his chest. The gesture seemed to have an instantaneous effect on him, making his shoulder drop down, and his entire body relax. He took his arms, that he had not been sure what to do with, and wrapped them around her head, holding it close to himself. Was he going too far? Had Ibuki just acted without thinking? A ton of questions ran through Souda’s mind, but he didn’t care. He wanted this moment to himself. It was perfection. The cold evening breeze contrasting the warmth of her body, her clothes pressing up tightly against his, and the purest, most intense feeling of caring, Souda had ever felt towards another person.

_“I want to hug her forever. I want my present to have a lasting effect… I just want to permanently exist in this moment.”_

It felt like 10 minutes had passed before Ibuki finally let go and pulled back. In reality, it had probably only been about half a minute or so, but Souda would lie if he said it wasn’t unusual for time to slow down every time he was around the Ultimate Musician. They were both breathing heavily, and looking each other straight in the eyes. It was a moment of recovery they both required before moving on to other things. Souda had never felt Ibuki look so intensely at him before. It was a sight he was sure to never forget, ever.

“W-Well… S-See you later Souda….”

It came abruptly. They had just been holding each other, and now she was already on her way. Time seemed to not just go back to normal, but actually accelerate, getting faster and faster for Souda. He didn’t want her to leave already.

However, he knew he couldn’t force her to stay either. It was getting cold, and he didn’t want to accidentally make her get a cold from standing outside for too long.

“Alright… See ya, Ibuki… And…”

Ibuki, who was already in the middle of walking away from Souda, turned on a dime, looking in the direction of the mechanic.

“…Thank you.”

Ibuki was visibly blushing. Souda could tell, despite her being a few meters away. Again, she looked beautiful. The warm colours on her face contrasting against the cold evening sky… She looked as perfect as ever. In response to her blush, Souda simply smiled. A wide grin, stretching across his entire face. He then turned around, and headed in the opposite direction of Ibuki, wanting to go for a quick walk, reflecting on what had just happened, before heading the same way as Ibuki, back to the hotel. 

However, he suddenly found himself being spun around, suddenly facing the opposite direction. Before even comprehending what had just happened, he felt a couple of extremely warm lips on his own. His eyes shot up instantly. He was looking straight into Ibuki’s closed eyes, her lips still on his. Although not quite understanding what was happening, Souda knew that he found it incredible. Closing his eyes, Souda leaned into what he now realized was a kiss. If he thought the embrace before had felt perfect, this was an even greater perfect. Their lips seemed to melt together, his body feeling warmer than it had ever done before, despite the environment they were standing in.

When the two of them separated, he only managed to get a brief glimpse of Ibuki’s face before she ran off towards the hotel, his present in hand. He couldn’t find it in himself to shout after her. He was completely and utterly locked in place. He put his hand to his lips, trying to wrap his head around what had just happened. After standing around, looking dumbfounded, he casually strolled on his evening-walk, suddenly having gotten even more to reflect on. He could very clearly feel his heartbeat. It was faster than it had ever been before. A blush formed on his face, as he walked alongside the quiet ocean, whistling one of Ibuki’s songs to himself.

Back at the hotel, a certain musician was sitting at the edge of her bed. The gift and all of the photographs had been thrown unto her desk, in a big pile that she couldn’t care less about cleaning up right now. Well, all of the photographs, except one. One that she was holding and looking at right now, a smile appearing on her face as she quietly giggled to herself.

It was the only photo from the concert of her and Kazuichi together, one that Souda, unbeknownst to her, had asked Mahiru to take before she started the first song of that evening.

Ibuki stared at the photo for a long time before gently laying it on her bedside table and going to sleep, her heart fluttering all throughout the night.


End file.
